No More Hearts
by DrProfessor
Summary: Sora, Riku, and Kairi already had enough trouble dealing with the Heartless every day, but now they have to put up with 13 of the country's deadliest assassins! Join the bloodshed in this AU based on Ubisoft's No More Heroes.
1. Chapter 1

**No More Hearts**

Disclaimer: All characters unless otherwise stated are copyright of Square-Enix.

Chapter 1

They say good stories spend a lot of time setting up the world the story takes place in. But I don't really buy that, you know? I think it's cooler to just throw the reader right in the middle of everything and let the action fill in what's going on. But I guess if I have to, I'll just give you some details.

So there's this city, right? Hub City. Stupid name, but it works and no one really gives a shit. The point is, this place is huge. We're talking so fucking big, it's got its own subcities. Yeah, that's right. Seven of them in all. Most people just call 'em sectors. Big, big city.

Now the big picture, the main thing you gotta know about, are the Heartless. They're these monster things that are pretty much made of nightmares and pure evil. You know how it is. They go around stabbing the good people of the city and stealing their Hearts. Not like the ones beating in your chest that pump the blood. No, it's more like your soul. So you're pretty screwed if they getcha. That's where we come in. You see, me and my friends? We're guardians. It doesn't mean much. It's not like an official title or anything. We're not funded by what little government operates this city. It just means we're willing to go out there and kick Heartless ass. So anyone that picks up a gun or a baseball bat and goes around bashing in their nonexistent skulls is pretty much a guardian.

There's also Nobodies, which are what's left over when the Heartless nab a Heart that's particularly magical and special and all that shit. It's complicated and I'm sure you couldn't care less about the details. Which is good, because I really don't feel like explaining them.

What else… What else… Ah, fuck it. You'll probably learn the rest later on. Any more of this and the intro will just drag on. Hell, I might end up just summarizing the entire story and ruining it for everyone. Wouldn't that be a kick in the ass? So what do you say? Let the bloodshed begin!

"No, n- You're not listening to me!"

"Oh, I'm listening just fine. Once again the two of you get to dash off and save the fuckin' day while I'm left here with, what, picking up your homework?"

"… What, uh… What did we get today anyway?"

"You're serious."

"Well, it's worth asking. I mean… You… You did get it, right?"

"Sometimes I just… Fuck. Math."

"You're the best, Kairi."

"What does it matter, anyway? We both know you idiots aren't even gonna do it."

"You're probably right. Guess it was kinda pointless then, huh?"

"…"

"Kairi? You still there?"

"Yeah, yeah. So what are you guys doing now?"

"Riku's fixing the Kingdom. Fuckin' Darkball got a hold of it and bent the frame so now the beam won't appear or whatever."

"What, again? Tell Riku to reinforce that thing. Yours is the only one that does that."

"Yeah, well yours has all those flowers on it to make it nice and sturdy."

"Ugh, don't remind me. Tell him I want a new fucking Beam Key. I'm sick of that girly shit."

"But you are a girl."

"Sora."

"…"

"Well?"

"He says, and I quote, 'They're fucking expensive as shit to build and you should quit your bitching because you're lucky you get that one.'"

"Ha ha, tell him to go suck-" *beep*

Sora stared at his phone's screen. Call Disconnected. "What? Oh come on! Reception's terrible out here." He sighed.

Sora was a young man, at age of 16. Decked out in a red leather jacket, baggy cargo shorts, heavy steel-toed shoes, and a t-shirt with the word "SEPULCHRITUDE" written on it. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of yellow-tinted sunglasses.

"Disconnected again?" Riku asked, not bothering to look up from his work table. Strewn about were bits of wire and metallic plates. Although it was far from complete, what could only be described as a gigantic key lay in front of him. This was a Beam Key, a specialized weapon that utilized high-tech light wave technology to generate a concentrated beam of energy from the base to a receiver on-

You know what? It runs on magic. Let's just leave it at that. There's a little magic device on top of the guard at the handle that shoots sparkly fairy power to this little receiver bit on the bottom of the key's teeth.

"Well, call her back." Riku suggested, still not looking up. "Go upstairs or something. It's a miracle you could get reception down here in the first place. Gah!" That last bit was him brushing up against a loose wire and realizing the power wasn't completely turned off.

Riku was a taller lad, at the age of 17. He wore a silver vest that allowed the intricate skull-with-bat-wings-surrounded-by-barbed-wire tattoo on his left bicep to display itself proudly. His jeans were in tatters, but he took pride in the fact that he did not buy them like that. The boys were currently in Riku's basement, where he performed maintenance on their weapons. A radio sitting on an old end-table in the corner of the room blared some girly J-pop song.

"Heavenly stars above  
Just believe what's in your heart  
No border between us  
I can always feel you inside"

They'd change the station if the radio still had the knob required to do so. Whatever, at least it made Kairi happy.

Sora ambled his way upstairs and walked out the front door. He held his phone above his head, hoping to get a signal. The sun was right above him, but his sunglasses did a good enough job of blocking the light. "I fucking hate technology…" He mumbled. Finally getting a connection, he dialed Kairi's number. It rang, and rang, and rang, and rang. And for the first time in probably three years, he heard Kairi's voice mail message. And the only reason he heard it three years ago is because he was there when she recorded it.

"The hell?" He asked himself. "Kairi not answering her phone?" He theorized that she was probably trying to call him and decided to wait to hear from her. He leaned against the front door and sighed. After a minute of nothing, he walked back inside and headed downstairs. Riku was putting the finishing touches on the Kingdom, screwing in the final plate. He noticed Sora and greeted him by activating the energy beam and grinning.

"Try not to break it this time." He chuckled. He turned off the beam and collapsed the frame into itself. The end result looked like an old-fashioned key if you cut off the shaft and glued the teeth to the bow directly. "So, get a hold of your girlfriend?"

"Nah, went to her voice mail. I'm gonna try again in a little while." He took the Kingdom from Riku and hooked it to the holster on the back of his belt. "Thanks, by the way."

Riku leaned back in his chair. "Hey, that's what I do."

"Seriously, though. Why does this thing keep getting fucked up?" Sora sighed, throwing his arms up in disgust.

Riku stood up and shrugged his shoulders. "It's because it's so plain looking. I mean, take Way to Dawn here." He pulled his own Beam Key off of the holster he had strapped to his back. The Way to Dawn was a much more detailed weapon than Sora's. Its bow was shaped like two wings, angel and demon. The shaft resembled a fin of some kind, while the teeth were designed to look like another angel wing. The beam generator came off of the spine on the lower demon wing and met the receiver on the bottom tip of the teeth.

"Yes, yes, we're all very impressed by your super-deep Beam Key. Oooh, it's Light and Dark." Sora groaned. Riku was the technician. He also had a sizeable ego. There was a reason his weapon looked the best.

"I've got a thick, strong shaft to keep me going for a long time." Riku noted, ignoring his friend's sarcasm. "A true work of art."

Sora rolled his eyes. "On that note, I'm gonna try Kairi again." He dialed in her number and waited. It rang once. Twice. Three- *click*

"Finally! Damn, Kairi. What happened? I can't believe I heard your voice mail. You drop your phone in a sewer or some-" the voice on the other end of the line cut him off. Whoever it was, it was far too deep and sinister to be Sora's girlfriend.

"Hello, Mr. Guardian..."


	2. Chapter 2

No More Hearts

Chapter 2

"Who the hell is this?" Sora didn't bother with being shocked and just got straight to the point.

The voice on the other end was clearly smiling. "Now, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. You don't want me revealing everything at once now, do you? Where's the fun in that?"

Sora started pacing back and forth. "Don't play games with me, pal. Where's Kairi?"

"Did something happen to Kairi?" Riku asked. Sora ignored him for now.

"She's here. Safe. Sort of." The voice chuckled. "All things considered, I guess."

Sora could hear a muffled voice in the background. "I'm gonna go ahead and assume that was her." He stated.

"Bingo! You're good at this! Look, tell ya what, kid. I'll make this easy on you. I promise you, we're not taking her out of Hub. In fact, we aren't taking her out of Sector Hollow Bastion! So that makes your job easier, right?"

There was a silent pause for a few seconds, and the voice continued. "I mean, you _are_ coming to rescue her, right? Isn't that what you hero types do?"

Sora was too angry to say anything further. Riku was starting to get a little concerned.

"Well, if you aren't going to contribute to the conversation, I guess we're done here. Don't worry, though. We'll be in touch."

Sora snapped back from his anger. "Wait, who are you guys?! What do you want Kairi for?! Hello? Hey! DAMN IT!"

"The fuck is going on?" Riku asked.

Sora groaned loudly. "Some fuckers kidnapped Kairi! I don't know who they are or what happened, but she's fuckin' kidnapped!"

Riku's eyes popped wide open. "What?! Why?! Who the hell is- Well, where are they now?!"

"How should I fuckin' know?! The guy said they weren't leaving Hollow Bastion, so let's hope he wasn't just full of shit." Sora leaned his forehead against the basement wall. He was still for a moment, before he suddenly kicked it as hard as he could. The drywall crumpled like wet newspaper. "Sorry."

Riku didn't care. "Whatever, man. What do we do here?"

Sora pulled his foot out of the hole and shoved his hands in his pockets. "She was walking home from school, and she just got out, so she shouldn't have gotten too far. We should head over there, see if we can find any-" His cell phone went off.

"Hello?" He answered curtly.

"OHMYGOSH, SORA, SOMETHING HORRIBLE JUST HAPPENED!" The shrieking harpy voice on the other end belonged to Selphie, a friend of Kairi's.

"Oh fuck, what now?" Sora moaned.

He could barely make out the rapid gibberish Selphie was spouting, but he caught important words like "Kairi", "grabbed", and "van".

"Wha- WAIT! You saw her get taken?!" He shouted.

"Yeah! Yeah! I wanted to, like, ask her about something, so I was gonna go talk to her, but then I saw her get thrown into this van, but I'm pretty sure they didn't see me, and I didn't know what to do, so I panicked and then I called you!"

Sora did some mental math. He was disconnected about five minutes ago, which meant…

"So you stood there and did nothing for five minutes." He sighed. "Did you see who it was? Or get the license plate? Anything?"

Selphie was silent. Poor girl was probably using all her brainpower to remember what she had seen. "He had… red hair. I think. Or maybe that was Kairi's hair."

"SELPHIE!"

Riku sighed. He was getting sick of being able to only hear one side of the conversation.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Okay! Yeah! He definitely had red hair! And the van… The van was old. And, like, really rusty!" She stammered.

"Anything else?"

"No, no, that's it. That's all I can remember. You're gonna go find her, right Sora? Right?" She pleaded. Apparently Selphie had little faith in her friends.

"Goodbye, Selphie." *click*

"And what did she have to say?" Riku scoffed.

Sora shoved his phone back in his pocket and rubbed his eyes underneath his shades. "Not much. You know how she is. All I got was that the guy had red hair and drove a piece-of-shit van. So now all we have to do is drive around the ENTIRE fucking Sector and hope we run into whoever fits that description."

A smile suddenly crept along Riku's face. "Heh. You know what this means, right?"

Sora stared at him with a combination of confusion and frustration. "What're you smiling about?"

Riku suddenly grasped his friend's shoulder. "Think about it, Sora. You just said all we can do is drive around blindly, right? You really think my shitty car is up for that? We don't have a choice." Riku drove a Piece-of-Shit Jeep he bought at an army surplus store. It didn't have a passenger-side door. And the left headlight was missing. And there were exactly 42 bullet holes in total all over the thing. Riku counted.

Sora realized what Riku was implying. "You're right. We have to. It's the only way to save her."

Simultaneously, they said "We have to drive her car."

Kairi was rather well-off for someone who lived in Hollow Bastion. Now, granted, Hollow Bastion was not a terrible place to live. But several Sectors were far nicer and cleaner. Ivalice and Zanarkand chief among them. The point was, she was able to afford certain things the boys could only dream of. Like her car.

A 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder*. You fuckers can Google that if you want.

Only three times had she let Sora behind the wheel of that beauty. And never without her in the passenger seat, having a panic attack. But surely she would understand the circumstances now, wouldn't she? Of course she would.

Fortunately, Kairi's mother was out when they arrived at her house in Riku's Piece-of-Shit Jeep. The last thing either of them wanted to do was tell her "Hello, Miss Kairi's Mom. Your daughter's been kidnapped and we're stealing her car to go rescue her. Bye!" Even more fortunate was that Kairi's house was within walking distance of the school.

Sora had to pick the lock on the garage side door, but it was a simple enough task for him. The garage interior was dark, the only light shining through the open door. That's when they heard it.

The scratching and growling they had come to know from years of experience. The familiar, telltale signs of a Heartless within their vicinity.

"Little bastard must've snuck in when I opened the door." Sora whispered.

Riku shook his head. "I doubt it. Have a feeling he was already in here."

They heard something fall on the other side of the garage and their eyes darted to the location. They couldn't see much, but there was definitely something moving in the darkness.

"Get ready… He's comin' towards us…" Riku warned.

They saw the shape jump at them, and Sora made his move. He attempted to grab it in midair, but he missed and the damn thing wrapped its mouth around his forearm and started chewing.

"Ow! Damn it, Edison! It's me!" He growled. The Shadow didn't appear to listen. "Me! Sora! Remember?"

The Shadow stopped biting and merely hung there, supported by its "jaw". Sora sneered at it. "Little bastard-OW!" At this, the Shadow gave him another bite.

About five months ago, Kairi noticed the trash cans on the side of her house had been ravaged by a raccoon. Being a girl of action (but moreso having nothing better to do with her time), she decided to catch the bugger in the act. What she found that night was not a raccoon, but a Shadow. Normally she'd cut the thing in half without a thought, but there was something strange about this Shadow. For one thing, it didn't try to claw her chest open the second it saw her. Instead, it fell off the trash can and scurried towards her.

The thing seemed almost curious, and Kairi noticed that, instead of razor-sharp claws at the ends of its hands, it had round, harmless fingers. She thought the creature was adorable and adopted it instantly. It was a little difficult to explain to her mother, but eventually she gave in and Edison became a member of the family. Sora had mixed feelings about it. For one thing, it was a Heartless. But on the other hand, it was virtually harmless. All it could do was kind of "nibble" on your arm and occasionally tear up important papers. And even if it did have claws, there was still the matter of it being about as dumb as a rock and clumsy as a drunk Scotsman. Plus, it, like many things Sora didn't particularly care for, made Kairi happy.

In order to distinguish her precious baby from the other, more violent Shadows, Kairi adorned Edison with a bandanna around his neck. It even had a Hidden Mickey on it. Kairi thought it was exceptionally cute, and the boys had to agree. The three of them liked Disney quite a bit. They felt attracted to it for some reason.

"Listen, Eddie. I know Mommy probably told you to never let us near her car, but this is very important. Mommy's in trouble right now. You understand?" Sora asked the hellspawn attached to his arm.

Edison's eyes widened. He curled his hands around Sora's arm and hung from them as opposed to his mouth. He gave a little nod.

"And the only way we can get to her is if we drive her car. You with me so far?"

Edison hesitated, his eyes giving a quick glance to the car. He nodded again.

"You want to help Mommy, don't you?"

Edison nodded frantically and released his grip, dropping to the ground in a very ungraceful manner. He reached inside the inky void that was his chest and pulled out a set of car keys. Sora hesitated to take them, exchanging uncomfortable glances with Riku.

Riku cleared his throat. "Didn't, uh… Didn't know he could do that."

Sora grabbed the keys by his thumb and pointer finger. "Good boy. Come on, let's go."

He felt a bit apprehensive behind the wheel. Anyone would, really. Slowly, he started the car and his heart skipped a beat when the radio started up.

"Let's get away, fly away  
I found the path to paradise  
Shining spiral of gold  
Take my hand, find our way out"

Sora's apprehension vanished. "That fuckin' song…" He mumbled as he backed out of the driveway. Edison crawled around Riku's lap like a psychotic puppy.

Riku took the opportunity to make a phone call neither of them were happy about making. "Hey, Hayner? 's Riku. Yeah. Hey, listen. Me 'n Sora are gonna be out of town for a while. So, uh… You guys are in charge. Yes I'm serious. No, it's- No, we can handle it. Just… Yeah. Calm down. Try not to break anything this time, okay? Right. See ya. Bye."

On the other end of the line, Hayner was practically beside himself. He and his friends Pence and Olette were the "back-up squad". Hayner was Sora's age, a cocky kid with a blonde crew-cut, dressed in camouflage and a combat vest. Pence was a portly guy who evidently thought he was either from the hood or a professional basketball player, by his manner of dress. And you'd never know of Olette's psychotic nature by looking at her. A sweet little brunette in an orange tank-top and beige capris.

The boys armed themselves with Riku's prototype Beam Keys, which didn't always work properly. But they couldn't care less that their Beam Keys would shut off at random times, leaving them with little more than a metal club to beat Heartless with. She was a self-proclaimed "master" of explosives. Truthfully, she was good at developing new types of bombs and they were plenty reliable. She just had the worst aim in existence. It often took her over five grenades to hit a single Soldier.

"That was Riku, bitches! Guess what? We're in charge!" Hayner cheered.

"NO WAY! THAT'S THE BEST NEWS I HEARD ALL DAY!" Pence joined in the celebration.

Hayner pumped his fist in the air. "You know it, man! Apparently they're all goin' off on this trip or something. And naturally, he came to us first and foremost. And why not? We _are_ the best around, ain't we?"

Olette giggled. "Fuck yeah we are!"

Only one person didn't seem too excited; Namine. She was a Nobody, of who, no one had a clue. She was a quiet, blonde girl, who spoke with a thick French accent and spent most of her time drawing in a sketchbook. She was probably Kairi's best friend. For some reason, they had a strange attraction to one another.

She was currently looking at the huge black line she accidentally drew through her sketch when she heard Hayner's announcement. "Oh hell…" She whispered. "This will not end well for me."

-----------

*The author of this story makes no claims to being a car expert in any way, shape, or form and merely took the name of the first car he saw that he thought looked totally sweet when he Googled it.


End file.
